Roy Lichtenstein in his Greenwich Village studio. Photography by Thomas Hoepker/Magnum Photos, courtesy the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, via the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Archives…
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Roy Lichtenstein’s Studio Building Donated to the Whitney Museum
The Whitney Museum’s revered Independent Study Program (ISP) will soon have a permanent home at the former studio of Roy Lichtenstein, which will undergo a renovation before reopening in 2023. Located a few blocks north of the museum in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, the pop artist’s former studio building has served as the home base for the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation since the artist’s death in 1997. “I can’t think of a more meaningful use for the studio than for the Whitney to carry his legacy far into the future, building on and expanding the role of the foundation in supporting contemporary art and artists,” Dorothy Lichtenstein, the artist’s widow, said in a statement.
Since being founded in 1968 by Ron Clark, the Whitney Museum’s ISP has hosted a multitude of seminal art-world figures in the early stages of their careers, from New York Times art critic Roberta Smith and Guggenheim Museum chief curator Naomi Beckwith to artists Andrea Fraser and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Despite the scholarly program’s prestige, it has never had a permanent home and has always migrated between leased locales. The museum has enlisted Johnston Marklee—a Los Angeles firm whose projects include the Menil Drawing Institute at the Menil Collection in Houston and the 2017 renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago—to convert the 9,000-square-foot studio.
Shangri-La Shougang Park in Beijing. Photography by Tsing Lim at Agent Pay…
Lissoni & Partners Reimagines Industrial Ruins in China as a Shangri-La
An abandoned 20th-century industrial structure is the site for one of Beijing’s most exciting new hotel arrivals. Behind a glass ‘transparent skin’ facade showcasing original steel roof trusses and concrete walls, the 282-room Shangri-La Shougang Park is spread across two buildings connected by an elevated bridge overlooking the Yongding River.
Inside, heavy Brutalist elements are balanced with lush greenery, meditative water features, contemporary Chinese art, and a show-stopping red staircase in the lobby. Culinary spaces include a brewery serving local beers, American-style burgers, and German roast pork knuckle, while a market-style restaurant is outfitted with stations offering Beijing roasted duck, seafood hotpots, and other cuisines ranging from Sichuan to Cantonese. Milan-based firm Lissoni & Partners is behind the transformation, a masterful example of adaptive reuse.
Al Taulell in Valencia. Photography by David Zarzoso…
Valencian street markets inspire a Mediterranean restaurant designed by Viruta Lab.
In Valencia’s historic neighborhood of Arrancapins, local creative studio Viruta Lab embraced imperfection and raw character when designing the tapas restaurant Al Taulell. Exposed bricks, patinas of paint, and original ironwork are offset by Art Nouveau touches and a minimal color palette of gold, blue, and off-white—an aesthetic that pays tribute to the authentic Valencian street markets.
The U.S. Copyright Office has rejected a request for protection of a work created by AI.
The U.S. Copyright Office won’t grant copyright protection to an artwork created by artificial intelligence, claiming that the work “lacks the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim.” Steven Thaler put forth the work—A Recent Entrance to Paradise by the “Creativity Machine”—twice, requesting that the office reconsiders its decision after it was rejected the first time. “We disagree with the Copyright Office’s decision and plan to appeal,” Thaler’s attorney, Ryan Abbot, told Artnet News. “AI is able to make functionally creative output in the absence of a traditional human author, and protecting AI-generated works with copyright is vital to promoting the production of socially valuable content.”
Sacha Jafri plans to place the first “official” artwork on the moon later this year.
Sacha Jafri made headlines last year after selling what he described as “the world’s biggest painting” for a whopping $62 million. Now, the British artist is scaling his creative ambitions up even further by announcing plans to permanently install an artwork on the moon. Called We Rise Together—with the Light of the Moon, the work features text and a heart on aerospace-grade aluminum covered with gold, and will be sent to space later this year by way of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service. A second version will be sold at auction and special NFTs will be minted to commemorate the mission’s five steps, with a portion of sales going to charity. Though Jafri claims his is the first official artwork to be installed on the moon, Paul van Hoeydonck sent a small aluminum sculpture paying tribute to astronauts lost during space travel that was placed on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971.
Tschabalala Self x Ugg capsule collection. Image courtesy of Ugg…
Tschabalala Self’s capsule collection with Ugg adds a colorful twist to cozy footwear.
The ascendant New York painter, who has gained renown for quilt-like portraits of exaggerated female figures that ruminate on Blackness, staged her first-ever performance at the Performa biennial in October. She oversaw every aesthetic aspect of the performance, including the costumes produced in collaboration with Ugg. She’s now teaming up with the American footwear brand on a capsule collection that’s slated to drop next month, and features colorful twists on boots, slippers, outerwear, and accessories. “With this project, I feel like I’m using a lot of the same aesthetic tropes and types of patterning and design and geometry that I would generally use in my practice, but the figure is not present,” she tells Vogue. “I was able to indulge purely in what feels and looks good, as opposed to linking those things directly to a much larger social and political narrative.”
Sotheby’s recalls a sale of CryptoPunk NFTs estimated at $30 million at the last minute.
Earlier this week, Sotheby’s was slated to auction a single-lot of 104 CryptoPunk NFTs estimated to garner up to $30 million. Unfortunately, 23 minutes after it was to have gone live at Sotheby’s New York, the consignor withdrew the sale by tweeting “nvm, decided to hodl” [sic]. Shortly afterward, the user, known as Ox650d, posted an image of Drake smiling that says “Taking punks mainstream by rigging Sotheby’s,” which imply that that he pulled the rug out from under the auction house–an action that involves faking a project and running away with cash from unsuspecting investors.
Today’s attractive distractions:
The FDA has authorized the first-ever condom specifically indicated for anal sex.
Nat Geo’s latest map shows where on Earth humans have made minimal impact.
